Starting a priest
Priests are the quintessential healers in a group, although they can be powerful ranged damage dealers as well. But it is always in a group that a Priest will truly shine. A Priest is responsible for the staying power of any group, and although their job can be thankless it is essential – and most experienced players realize and appreciate this. If you often lead parties, particularly instance groups, some experience in knowing how to play the Priest class can be extremely helpful. Among newer players, however, this class is often enormously undervalued relative to their importance within a group. In a group, a Priest will generally be expected to fill a healer role, particularly at lower levels. This is partially due to their very high ability in healing at lower levels, as well as their lower damage output at these levels. As a Priest gains levels, and especially when Shadowform becomes available at level 40, they are able to compete on a more-even footing with pure DPS classes, but even so a Shadow-tree Priest compares very well to most other healing-capable classes until endgame is reached. If you're considering playing a Priest, you'll want to ask yourself a few questions first: * Do I mind generally (and often being expected to without even being asked) taking the healer role in a group? * Do I mind playing a class which requires me to learn both solo tactics with damaging abilities and group tactics with healing abilities? * If I'm going to do PvP, am I comfortable with the pressure of frequently being the primary target (especially when in Shadowform)? * Can I think quickly, and handle a large number of very different abilities in the process of getting my job done? * Do I mind the pressure of being the most indispensable member of a group? * Do I subsequently not mind the fact that I may not get a lot of attention or glory in this role? And being blamed (sometimes for the mistakes of others) when things go wrong? * Do I like to melt faces? Being a priest has a number of advantages, including your immense popularity when setting up a group (this could also be the peak of your popularity, by the way, as if the group wipes you may get the blame), and a lot of respect from experienced players if you play your character well. At higher levels, Priests can become enormously powerful. A Shadow spec Priest after level 40 with Vampiric Embrace is able to passively heal his entire party while he himself deals a lot of damage, making the class an incredibly valuable to any PvP group, while a Holy spec Priest is an astonishingly powerful healer. Even at early levels, the Priest gets abilities like Power Word: Shield and Power Word: Fortitude, and become able to resurrect other characters at a very early level. In one-on-one PvP a skilled Priest is a force to be reckoned with, due to such abilities as Psychic Scream, self-healing, and Mind Control. Races The first thing to consider with a priest is what race to make them. The following races can play as a Priest: * Alliance ** Draenei ** Dwarf ** Night elf ** Stormwind Human * Horde ** Blood elf ** Darkspear Troll ** Forsaken When choosing a race for your Priest, the most important gameplay concern is their racial spells. Each race of Priest gets two spells that other races may not have access to. (Previous to Patch 2.3, Dwarves and Draenai were especially popular for Alliance priests due to their Fear Ward racial Priest spell, but now all Priests have access to this spell at level 20.) Draenei The Draenei are a noble race with strong ties to the holy light. The Draenei start off in a crash site on the island of Azuremyst off the western coast of Kalimdor. This island is also the location of the Naaru ship the Exodar which has become the new capital city of the Draenei race on Azeroth. Draenei receive Symbol of Hope at level 10, and Chastise at level 20. * Chastise - Chastise causes Holy damage and incapacitates the target for 2 seconds. Dwarf The steadfast Dwarves have ever been the bedrock of the Alliance. Their mountain fortresses are marvels of stone and iron, only matched by their legendary skill in battle. The home city of Ironforge lies near the outpost of Anvilmar, which will serve as your starting point. While the dwarves are well known fighters, recent events have suggested that they have a larger part to play in the world and they have bent themselves to the task of discovering what that may be. As such, they have become masters of discovery and knowledge as often as they have become masters of the blade and warhammer. Dwarves receive Desperate Prayer at level 10, and Chastise at level 20. * Desperate Prayer - Desperate Prayer is an instant, self-only healing spell. It costs zero mana and has a 10 minute cooldown. The amount of healing increases by level. * Chastise - Chastise causes Holy damage and incapacitates the target for 2 seconds. Night elf Night elves start in Aldrassil, at the heart of Teldrassil. Night elves receive Starshards at level 10, and Elune's Grace at level 20. * Starshards - Acquired from a 10th level quest which is a DoT spell. It has multiple levels which increase the damage per hit. It lasts for 15 seconds, costs no mana, and has a 30 second cooldown. You will want to use it every time it is up, as it does a moderate amount of damage for no cost at all. * Elune's Grace - Acquired at 20th level, a self-only buff which increases chance to avoid ranged and melee attacks by 20%. Coupled with the Night Elf racial trait of extra 1% chance to dodge, this is a highly useful, albeit situational, buff. If caught in a situation where you're waiting for your Psychic Scream cooldown to end and a melee class is on you, this spell can be a lifesaver. As almost no priests use agility boosting gear, having an instant cast to boost your total chance to dodge to 26% or higher can really get you out of a jam. Stormwind Human Stormwind Humans start at Northshire Abbey, just north of the town of Goldshire. Their The Human Spirit racial trait increases their Spirit by 10%, which increases a Holy Priest's primary attribute. Humans receive Desperate Prayer at level 10, and Feedback at level 20. * Desperate Prayer - Desperate Prayer is an instant, self-only healing spell. It costs zero mana and has a 10 minute cooldown. The amount of healing increases by level. * Feedback - ( 20th level ) Every time a spell is successfully cast against you, the attackers mana is burned for the same amount of damage inflicted on you. Blood elf As High elves they served the Alliance as followers of the Holy Light, and continue to do so for the Horde now as Blood elves. Blood elves receive Touch of Weakness at level 10, and Consume Magic at level 20. *Touch of Weakness - Touch of Weakness is a buff that the Priest can cast upon him or herself. It lasts for ten minutes and has only one charge, and once cast, will cause shadow damage to the melee damage inflicter, and affects that target with a debuff that reduces their damage done by a constant amount. The amount of damage done and damage reduced increases with levels. *Consume Magic - Consume Magic is an instant cast spell with a 2 minute cooldown. It dispels one beneficial Magic effect from the caster returning mana to the caster, however the dispelled effect must be a Priest spell. This effect scales with level. Essentially what you do is eat one of your own buffs and return mana to yourself. At first glance, this seems kind of worthless. However, if you're in a group and the fight is going sour, you can eat one of your own buffs and get some mana back. This combined with a fully charged arcane torrent can give you enough mana to save the day. Darkspear Troll The trolls of the Darkspear tribe travelled west to Kalimdor with Thrall many years ago. They've since settled down in and around Durotar, though the desire to return to their homelands in Stranglethorn Vale still resides in the hearts of many of them. The Priests of the troll race serve a similar role to the Shaman, that of healer and spiritual leader. Troll priests receive Hex of Weakness at level 10, and Shadowguard at level 20. * Hex of Weakness - Hex of Weakness is an instant cast 30 yard range spell that weakens the target enemy, reducing damage caused and reducing the effectiveness of any healing by 20%. The curse lasts 2 minutes. This spell is similar to the Forsaken level 10 Priest spell, bar the damage and the need to hit with a melee weapon to proc. * Shadowguard - Similar to the Shaman's spell Lightning Shield, casting Shadowguard surrounds the priest with a force of shadow. When the priest is struck in combat, the Shadowguard hits the assailant for shadow damage. The amount of damage done by Shadowguard improves with additional spell levels. There are additional benefits to using this spell as well: If you are a shadow-specced priest with the Blackout talent, be aware that Shadowguard is considered a shadow damage spell, making Shadowguard a lifesaver both in PvP and PvE. (Ever see a rogue try to stunlock a Troll shadowpriest and get stunned instead? The irony is sweet.) Shadowguard damage does not cause threat, unlike Thorns. Forsaken Starting in the beautiful Gothic forests of Tirisfal Glades, the Forsaken Priests struggle to forge a path for themselves in their new roles. How can you be a preacher for the gods when the gods have abandoned you? From a role-playing and storyline perspective, this is a prominent factor for the Forsaken priest, one that does not figure much into your gameplay experience, but one that can easily make its way into how you play your character. Obviously someone is out there, because the calls of the Forsaken priests are still answered ... but by who? All Forsaken have the racial trait Will of the Forsaken which dispels Fear, Sleep and Charm effects, and can be a life saver in tight PvP matches with many other classes. Forsaken receive Touch of Weakness at level 10, and Devouring Plague at level 20. * Touch of Weakness - Touch of Weakness is a buff that the Priest can cast upon him or herself. It lasts for ten minutes and has only one charge, and once cast, will cause shadow damage to the melee damage inflicter, and affects that target with a debuff that reduces their damage done by a constant amount. The amount of damage done and damage reduced increases with levels. * Devouring Plague - Devouring Plague is a Damage over Time (DoT) spell that inflicts a sizable amount of damage upon an opponent over a 24-second span of time. Every point of damage suffered by Devouring Plague is returned to the Priest in health. This makes for a very useful spell in both PvP and tough PvE encounters. The recast timer on this spell prevents it from being used frequently, so its best not to use it unless you know you're in for a tough fight. The amount of damage done by Devouring Plague improves with increased spell levels. Early Priest Leveling Levels 1 - 3 Initially, you're equipped with a ranged attack, Smite, and a healing spell, Lesser Heal. With money, you can learn your first buff, Power Word: Fortitude. Keep this active at all times, and feel free to cast it on others as a friendly gesture. Begin combat at maximum range with Smite, spamming it until you run out of mana or the mob dies. Since Smite does not have a missile graphic, combat begins as soon as Smite is done casting. Like a mage, your survival is heavily dependent on the amount of mana you have. For now, combat should always start at maximum health and mana. If you run out of mana, use melee attacks, but as soon as you can get a wand, and then use your Shoot ability. Also, remember that you have the ability to heal yourself and others, both in and out of combat. Keep in mind the amount of mana you have, allocating some for both DPS and healing. When grouped with others, it's wise to play to your strengths and focus on keeping everyone healthy, as most other classes can deliver damage more efficiently and easily. As battles become more difficult, it's essential that you're never hit or under attack, leaving you free to cast much-needed healing spells without interruption. Levels 4 - 5 At level 4, you can learn your first DoT, Shadow Word: Pain. Continue to open combat with Smite. But instead of spamming right away, walk backwards or strafe to create distance between you and the mob. While moving, you can apply the Shadow Word: Pain debuff to the mob. Keep this debuff active on your targets at all times. In unfortunate situations where you are fighting two mobs at the same time, keeping this DoT active on both mobs allows you to efficiently deal damage to both while addressing one mob at a time. After the DoT is successfully applied, you can stop moving and go back to spamming Smite. For extra long battles, always remember to renew the debuff when it wears off. Levels 6 - 7 At level 6, you can learn Power Word: Shield. Use it whenever you are under attack, or cast it upon yourself before combat begins. Either way, the shield should be up as often as possible, to help avoid damage and spell interruption. Levels 8 - 9 At level 8, you can learn Renew, a healing over time spell, and Fade, which helps manage aggro. Keep renew on whenever you or someone else is under attack, as it can spot heal over time, sometimes saving you the trouble of casting a bigger heal later on. When working with others, use Fade when you have aggro, to help avoid being hit. Levels 10+ At level 10, you can learn another ranged attack spell, Mind Blast, and Resurrection. Now would be a great time to start deciding what type of Priest you'll play. Spells For detailed info, see Priest Spells. Key Spells A priest should always use Power Word: Fortitude spell on himself and any friends before engaging in combat. Make sure to keep this buff active. Inner Fire, obtained at level 12, is a buff that can be cast by the priest on himself, and is useful to keep up, as it increases the amount of armor you have significantly (with about 200%). Usually a priest should pull with a slow casting Direct Damage spell like Smite or Mind Blast at the edge of the spell's range. The next spell should usually be the Damage over Time spell, Shadow Word: Pain, before the enemy gets within melee combat range. Because it is instant cast, you can be backing up while casting it, to extend the amount of time the mob takes to get to you. As you get around 20+ level and if spent most on shadow talents along with Mind Flay, you can use Mind Flay to further slow your target down and give your DoT spell time to do its work. Early on and throughout the adventures of a priest, Power Word: Shield can be used in a fight to instantly prevent some amount of damage to a party member. Be careful to watch whether you or a party member still has a Weakened Soul debuff before you try to cast it again. Though it is not the most efficient way of healing, it is extremely useful, as it instantly absorbs damage to you or a party member. One soloing routine involves casting Power Word: Shield, waiting until the Weakened Soul debuff fades off or is almost faded off, then starting combat. This is so that when the mob finally breaks through your shield, you have the option of re-shielding yourself. With your Shield up, you can think of using another Smite or Mind Blast, but be careful with Mind Blast. Mind Blast generates lots of aggro and in a group environment, may cause the mob to attack you instead of the tank. Shield prevents spell interruption from many forms of damage, and will help you (or another spellcaster in your party) when casting spells. You can use Renew (a Heal over Time spell), if you or your party member has more than 75% health, but probably a Lesser Heal if less than that. NOTE: Be warned that although Power Word: Shield may simply seem to prolong the life of the tank, it will prevent or significantly halt his rage generation. Talents At level 10, every class begins to accrue what are called 'Talent Points'. You can apply these points instantly to your character by accessing the 'Talent' menu, which becomes accessible upon reaching level 10. For a look at the Priest talents and how they interact, you can generally head over to The WoWVault Talent Tool. You can also look at other players' preferred talent layouts for an idea of how you may want to build your own priest. Of course, you may want to build your priest in your own way, in which case you may still want to look at this to at least help yourself plan things out. Priests receive talents in three different trees: * Shadow - These represent the darker side of priesthood. The shadow talents focus largely on increasing a priest's damage output through his or her Shadow spells. Specializing in shadow talents lends towards a more solo approach to the game, as a shadow priest's abilities don't generally stack well with teammates; particularly in large PvP environments or tough instanced dungeons where priests are generally in short-demand and needed for their superior ability to act as a healer. This should not be taken to understand that a Shadow Priest cannot live up to the task however which is quite possible. Many players will specialize in shadow talents up to level 55-60, and then switch to a Holy/Discipline hybrid. As a starting point it may be helpful to invest your first 5 points into Spirit Tap, then Improved Shadow Word: Pain followed by 3 points into Blackout, then get Mind Flay and then 5/5 in Mind Blast. After this for leveling purposes either getting Improved Power Word: Shield from the discipline tree is an option or going down the path to Shadowform. * Discipline - The discipline spells focus on inner strength, boosting a priest's mana, improving their buff spells significantly, etc. Many Discipline talents are very useful no matter what you specialize in. Additionally for end game healing the Discipline tree provides talents which allows a percentage mana regeneration to continue while casting, a talent to increase maximum spirit, a talent to cast a spell free of mana and a talent to maximize total mana by up to 10%. * Holy - Holy talents are vital to maximizing your efficiency as a healer, which is why most high-level priests elect to focus on these talents. It is a general consensus however that the end tree talents of the holy tree are not worth the talent points required to get them and hence many priests opt to specialize into holy to include Inspiration, Subtlety and possibly Improved Flash Heal or Improved Prayer of Healing. The holy line improves your healing power, lowers the mana cost of heals, and reduces the casting time of some healing spells. There is more to the holy line, too, so you may want to look through the aforementioned The WoWVault Talent Tool to get a full look. Talent discussion For an overview of (not only Priest) talent builds see the Talent Builds Guide. In the beginning, a Priest is a very fragile thing. One add is highly dangerous, two usually mean run away or death. The main problem is that there are very few instant cast priest spells, thus most (especially the mana-efficient ones) spells are subject to interruption by damage. Further, a priest has no crowd control (except the highly dangerous fear), no AoE damage, and no pet. In sum, this leads to frustration, and many promising priest careers end before level 20. There's not much to be done about this problem - low level solo priests are not fun. The best idea is to find a group. If you want to give your priest some solo ability, concentrate on the Shadow Tree. The principal drawbacks remain true - priests never gain AoE or real CC, but after level 40, Shadowpriests gain a lot of survivability, and a very high DPS output vs. single targets. Useful Professions Primary Professions * Tailoring : Tailoring is immediately useful to a priest, they can wear the cloth armor they make. Additionally, for new players, having the ability to make your own bags is incredibly valuable during the early stages of the game. * Skinning : Skinning is a very good choice for Priests new to the game as it allows them to gather up leather to sell at the Auction House from their prey killed while leveling. While not useful to the Priest directly the money is scorned by no one and it may be useful for the Priest to spend several seconds out of combat resting as mana regeneration only begins 5 seconds after a successful spellcast. Hence this time would not be wasted. * Mining : Mining like Skinning and Herbalism is one of the gathering professions and hence requires very little money invested to rise to the top levels of the skill. Additionally, there is good money to be made mining high level ores such as Mithril, Thorium and now also Fel Iron and Adamantite in Outland, however mining may be better suited as a supporting talent to those players who chose to go for Blacksmithing or Jewelcrafting. Note - ore sold in stacks as ore is useful to both blacksmiths and jewelcrafters whereas sold as bars it is of much less use to jewelcrafters (prospecting requires stacks of ore). Due to the reliance on both ore and bars a lot of jewelcrafters will also be miners and can smelt their own. * Herbalism and Alchemy : Even if, as a caster, the Priest can rely on his own abilities to heal and buff himself, additional potions are always welcome. Of specific note here are potions which allow the user to dispel and render himself immune to all forms of poison for 1 minute, an ability of vital importance when fighting hunters in PvP. Additionally, potions increasing the player's maximum armor value and potions which restore health points and mana points are invaluable at times. Herbalism and Alchemy especially at later levels is a very useful and much needed money saver, to fully fall into the healer role you will need backup potions which at later stages can cost 10+ gold an Instance, besides saving the money on making your own you then come into selling these potions at 10 gold + in the Auction House. * Enchanting : Although not specifically good for a Priest, the many items a Priest can't use can be made useful with Disenchant to provide reagents for enchanting. Also, the self-only enchantments like rings are always nice to have. At higher levels and in guilds, enchanting can be both profitable and sought after. Tailoring can complement enchanting by supplying items to disenchant. * Engineering : Engineering offers a wide array of trinkets and gadgets which a priest can use in order to help himself in 1v1 or even group PvP fights. For the most part, however, Priests won't find many of the Engineer's toys to be as useful as other classes might find them. For instance, the popular Jumper Cables are useless with access to the Resurrection spell. Some Engineering examples include: Exploding Sheep, a Net-o-Magic, the Mind Control Cap, a Gnomish Death Ray and others. * Blacksmithing and Leatherworking : Blacksmithing and Leatherworking are, more or less, utterly useless to priests. These professions are best left to those who can use the armor, weapons and tools they can make. Secondary Professions * First Aid : Although it may seem redundant, First Aid is an extremely valuable skill for priests to master. It is a very useful way to enhance your role as a healer while preserving mana and complements the Shadowform talent nicely. Shadowform costs nearly 500 mana to activate, so canceling it to heal is very expensive. Additionally, the 5-second mana rule doesn't activate due to bandaging, so you will continue to regenerate mana throughout. During long fights, spending a few seconds to bandage yourself or a nearby group-mate saves mana and allows full regeneration to continue. * Cooking : Like First Aid, Cooking further solidifies your role, but as a buffer. Some higher recipes offer significant boosts to Spirit and Stamina. And for the buff-happy, making a cozy fire in the middle of the area where you will be pulling a large number of mobs can give that extra special fuzzy feeling to your group's destruction. * Fishing : The large amount of patience required to keep up a good fishing skill will make up for itself when soloing, or even running instances. Most often, priests will heal themselves after a battle, using up more mana and consequently requiring more time for regeneration. But with fishing, just whip out those dead fish you caught earlier on and heal yourself the old-fashioned way! Or, give a stack or two of fish to everyone in your party before entering an instance, and you'll find yourselves requiring less time for regen breaks, and you might even save yourself some post-fight healing mana. You can eat your fish raw, or partner up the skill with Cooking to cook your fish, earning yourself some easy cooking skill, and not to mention, better food. Fishing is a good break from constant grinding, as well as a good participant in multitasking with your talent tree or inventory organization. While these skills contribute very little relative to the other buffs and heals you provide, in the right situation, they are highly effective tools and help in making the impression with your group that you are serious about your role. Mods Some Priests swear by them, others claim to be capable of doing their job without any add-ons whatsoever. It is a matter of personal preference. Certain add-ons may be required however by High End guilds for raiding. Among the more noteworthy are: * Benecast BeneCast is a tool to help the player cast beneficial spells on themselves, their party members, and friendly targets. It does so by allowing the player to pick and choose what spells they want to show up as clickable buttons next to the intended target from the BeneCast interface. This AddOn does not use action bar slots or ids, despite it using buttons. So it should play nice with other mods. It is also standalone. * CastParty – a party/player frame that provides the following: ** tight cluster of health/mana bars for player and party ** programmable functions for mouse clicks in combination with Alt, Control and Shift ** click a bar to apply appropriate heal to selected player ** key binding to apply appropriate heal to player nearest to death ** key binding to force efficient/emergency/instant/group healing * Whispercast * Healbot ** displays all health/mana bars of group or raid members in a compact box ** highlights entries based on conditions such as missing buffs you can provide, existing debuffs you can dispel and health level ** allows for one click healing and buffing, without the need to change targets manually ** highly configurable Despite its name, Healbot does not automate healing – this is not possible due to limitations imposed on the WoW addon system. What else? Priests are fragile, yes, but the starting areas are forgiving enough that you can give yourself a huge advantage by keeping yourself reasonably well-geared: * Good-quality armor is available and desirable at low levels. The Priest trainer in the town closest to each starting area has a quest that has a good-quality chest with +1 Spirit as a reward. You can also hire a tailor to make good-quality cloth armor pieces for you, or learn Tailoring and make them yourself. (If you become a Tailor, remember that only humanoids, undeads and, occasionally, demons, drop cloth. If you're on Teldrassil, this means sprites and furbolgs.) * Learn Staves from the weapons trainer in Darnassus or Orgrimmar. Staves tend to have better stat bonuses for Priests, and enchanters can enchant 2H weapons long before they can enchant 1H. * Obtain armor kits from a leatherworker or the Auction House, and make sure your equipped chest, hand, leg, and foot armor always has a kit applied. Remember to apply a new armor kit when you equip new armor, and to upgrade the type of kits you're using as you level. * A wand is an absolute MUST as a solo Priest. It deals amazing DPS, grants a powerful ranged attack and can be used continually at zero range! It may get a bit tedious after a while, but it's more than made up for with the added survivability factor! You can usually find a Lesser Wand in the AH at a reasonable price. If you choose Enchanting as one of your professions, you'll have an easy route to a Greater Magic Wand that you can use at level 13, but plan on buying your first wand as counting on good enough drops to disenchant can be folly. * While the +1 Spirit Robe is a nice reward for an easy quest early on, it's not the best armor you can get at that level. Generally, you can buy some chest cloth armor with a better rating cheaply. While you won't get the Spirit boost, it may be a decent edge early in your career. * Once you reach level 10 and beyond and gain talent points, it is best to spend them all on shadow. Don't get me wrong, discipline and holy have great stats, but when your trying to level and do as much damage as possible, having an extra 5% efficiency to healing spells does nothing for you. Go shadow until at least the 50's. * Smite is the first damage spell that you start with. As you progress and get higher ranks of the spell, the cast time increases significantly. Because of this it is wise to stop using it whenever possible. Pull and start fights with it, that is all, refrain from using it in combat. *...While Holy is not a viable specc for soloing, it will almost always render you a healer position in instance groups. If you like healing, this is your game - Even early on. If you are between levels 1 and 5, you will always want to use your damage spell instead of your weapon. In these levels, you will almost always kill an NPC with it before you run out of mana. Regeneration is fast. Try to get a wand at the earliest moment possible though. Especially the arcane wands low level enchanters can create provide an excellent DPS boost helping you to kill mobs without running out of mana. Having just started my priest i found this out pretty quickly. at about level 10 try to make friends with a warrior, your two classes complement each other beautifully and if either of you becomes stuck, chances are that the other can help. Also in the low lvl instances a tank and a healer can be really hard to find on under populated servers, but, if you are friends with a warrior you have these already and are free to choose your other help as you see fit Running out of ideas and time at the moment. Feel free to include anything else a possible priest may want to consider in the creation and early progression of their priest. Playing to your strengths Each class in WoW has a role—rogues are melee DPS, mages are ranged DPS, warriors are tanks, etc. The role of the priest is healing: we can heal better than any other class in the game. While a priest can also be damage-oriented with a shadow build, they still do not out-damage either a mage or a warlock (though shadow priests do have some nifty tricks like Feedback). If you play a priest, be prepared to play your role as first and foremost a healer. To maximize your effectiveness as a healer, you should spend your talent points in the Holy (and Discipline) trees. The kinds of equipment bonuses you want to collect are: *'Healing:' gives a boost to healing effects **The full effect of a "+healing" bonus is only realized on spells that last at least 3.5 seconds. Since Greater Heal and Prayer of Healing only take 3 seconds to cast, they receive a diminished benefit from the +healing bonus. Bonus to healing scales linearly, so they receive 3/3.5 (about 86%) of the benefit. The benefit is even smaller with Flash Heal (1.5s) at around 43%. However, the effect of a Renew lasts for 15s and thus gets the full benefit of +healing gear. Additionally, since Renew is an instant cast limited only by the global cooldown timer, it can be cast on many people in a short amount of time. The moral of the story: don't underestimate the usefulness of Renew! **Additionally in recent patches, +healing has further been reduced in effectiveness depending on the level of the player and the level of the spell he or she is casting. This was done specifically to address the number of priests with a large amount of +healing casting low-level healing spells to effectively never run out of mana during raid boss fights. *'Intellect:' determines your maximum amount of mana *'Spirit:' determines your rate of health and mana regeneration **Spirit affects your health and mana regeneration rate. Mana regeneration is very important for priests, as it increases the amount of healing they can do over the course of a battle. However, the mana regeneration from spirit is subjected to something called the "5 second rule," which is that you get no mana regeneration from spirit in the 5 seconds after a successful spell cast. Additionally, with spirit being the Blizzard-intended core attribute for priests, there are additional bonuses to having a high spirit score that go beyond mere regeneration. (Spiritual Guidance) *'Mana regeneration per 5 seconds' ("mp5") **This bonus is better than +spirit in some situations because it is not subject to the 5-second rule. Especially important during long fights. Soloing Soloing with a priest is not as hard as you'd think, given that you're the one class in the game that's not meant to engage in combat. The trick is to stay alive longer than the other guy (rather than kill him before he kills you). Let me explain: if you're a rogue, you have no healing abilities, so the only way you'll win an encounter is by making sure the other guy dies before you do. Hence, your priority is to kick out as much damage as you possibly can. However, that's not going to work for a priest because they don't have nearly the damage output that other classes have...but they do have healing abilities. Your priority is making sure you stay healed, and your secondary objective is wearing down your enemy. A typical mob battle looks like this: Slow-casting opener such as Holy Fire (Optional, if you're not a shadow priest) Mind Blast Shadow Word: Pain (Optional, if you're a shadow priest: 2 or 3x Mind Flay goes here. If not, Smite will do.) ..continue with your wand and SW:P... Ensure you finish the last five seconds of the fight with your wand out. If you start to run low on health, you can pop an instant Renew on you, or pop up a shield and cast any of your standard heal spells. If you're taking on an elite, the strategy changes a bit to handle the longer, harder fight. First, you want to start the fight with your shield already up (and preferably with your Weakened Soul debuff almost gone). Second, you want to sacrifice some of your DPS in order to have more mana for healing and shields. *Power Word: Shield *Holy Fire *Shadow Word: Pain *Wand *Power Word: Shield *Greater Heal *Shadow Word: Pain *wand *''..continue with wand, shield, heal, and SW:P...'' If you're taking on a group of enemies, Power Word: Shield is your friend. If that's not enough, Psychic Scream can send them away for a while (but with potentially disastrous results). If you get outnumbered and can't heal faster than they can damage, don't be reluctant to run—being a priest means you're not supposed to be able to handle lots of combat. External links * Leveling a Priest: How To Do It Right (WoW forum post) * Priest Talent Guide * WoW Insider Article on early-mid leveling(levels 1-40) of a priest, as well as explaining basic low-level spells and heals. Priest,Starting Priest